Reflection #4

I was reading the New York Times and came over this article. I thought it was very interesting and quite different from all previous articles I read concerning the use of technology in education. The author of this article pointed out some real situations where the students abused the allowance of laptop use and instead of using it for projects and school activities, they used laptops for cheating on tests, downloading pornography and becoming better at video games… Most of the teachers quoted in the article said that laptops did not bring improvement thus many schools are eliminating laptop programs and such. One of the students’ said that using laptop made him better at typing but did not make him a better student. The author also pointed out that applying technology to the classroom is very expensive and the districts spend a lot of money on repairing laptops and/or educating teachers of the possibilities for its various uses. There were many other examples of schools where technology has failed and the teachers are going back to traditional methods…
Personally I think that there should be a boundary, I like how one man said: “Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,” he said. “If the goal is to get kids up to basic standard levels, then maybe laptops are not the tool. But if the goal is to create the George Lucas and Steve Jobs of the future, then laptops are extremely useful.”
There were many other comments that I thought were interesting and useful to remember, but it’s better to read the whole article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html?ex=1336449600&en=d8e597f2df164e63&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink